I PROMISE Mr.T will be there, I swear!

While hangin around Casa Shoehead last night I was reminded of a standard sitcom plot that made my posse (yeah, I got one) laugh for hours. Remember the story on any sitcom--I think they're still doing it now--When one of the characters promises a famous person will appear at an event, and everyone's excited, but somewhat doubtful, then the celeb's running late, and no one believes that the character really knows the celeb. But in the end, the celeb does show up, appearing as him/herself, and all is right again! Remember that plotline? It came up when we heard last night on an oldies station The Three Degrees "When Will I see You Again". I thought about the Sanford and Son episode when Fred promised The Three Degrees would play at his social club, and they ran late, and Grady and all the oldsters in the club began chanting "We want The Three Degrees! We want The Three Degrees!" So funny...
Then there was Marcia promising that Davy Jones would appear at their homecoming, another classic! Or when Arnold promised that Mr. T would show up at his birthday party... and Mr. T delivers the tagline, "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Willis?" Priceless!
On the Golden girls, one of them (I forget who) assured our disbelieving octegenarians that Burt Reynolds is certain to appear at the fund-raiser, only to be vindicated when Burt's toupee showed up at the end of the episode, with Burt planted firmly underneath it!
The What's Happening episode when The Doobie Brothers were playing at Shirley's place was another good one. Rerun was coerced into making a bootleg recording for the neighborhood wiseguys, but after he just couldn't resist busting into his trademark dance moves, with the crowd parting the dance floor to give him center stage, his recorder and mike flew out into the middle of the floor! His plot was revealed to all!!! The Doobies were understandably upset, and were about to walk off, but--to the relief of everyone--Rahj's sage little sister Dee set everyone straight, including the band and their performance. The Doobies rocked on, and closed out the episode!
Man, I could go on... this seems to be a fallback episode to TV writers when they run out of ideas. Not quite shark-jumping, but swimming a little close to those waters. I'd like to produce a sitcom where that happens every episode, and the only thing the audience has to do is see who the celeb is for that week! First up--Beyonce! (Or has she done that already on show I don't watch?)
Salut, my awesome readers!